


Haptics

by draculard



Category: Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Movies)
Genre: Character Study, Ficlet, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Medical Experimentation, Medical Trauma, PTSD, Pre-Slash, Sign Language, touch starvation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-09-01 16:07:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20260810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draculard/pseuds/draculard
Summary: The first time Caesar touched his arm, Koba couldn't help but flinch.





	Haptics

The first time Koba retrieved food from a human camp, he held it out to Caesar from a distance, his head bowed, and when Caesar touched his arm, and then his cheek, his fingers brushing softly over Koba’s skin —  _ Good, _ Caesar meant to tell him, _ you did well _ — Koba flinched.

He couldn’t miss the frown in Caesar’s eyes then, the subtle twitch of his lips. But neither of them acknowledged it. Back then, neither of them could. 

The language of apes was physical. It required touch, and it was no less intimate when Caesar congratulated his followers than when he spoke to his family and friends. There was something solemn in his eyes that sent nervous electricity through Koba’s skin whenever Caesar looked his way — an unpleasant spark that glued his tongue to the roof of his mouth and sealed his throat shut so he couldn’t say anything even if he tried,

Every word was silent then.

Every word was physical.

The other apes (the chimps, especially) composed a language of their own. Signs mixed with touch, touch mixed with facial expressions and tics, tics mixed with vocalizations. Growls and grunts, aggressive noises. The sort of sounds that shunted Koba’s mind back to the cage, back to the prodding fingers of human scientists, the burn of experimental medication underneath his skin. 

He could feel those fingertips, gloved and sharp, poking through the coils of his brain. He could feel the medication burning down his throat, up his nasal passage, into his lungs, so all-consuming that he knew he was helpless against it. He could cough, he could gag (and he would), and it would do nothing to relieve the pain. 

And what started it all? 

A glance from Caesar. 

A passing touch. 

An assembly of looks, of gestures, of soft vocalizations — the meaning of it all lost on Koba, drowned by his memories of the cage.

* * *

He came to crave it.

Caesar’s touch insinuated itself into his brain the same way he’d absorbed sign language from watching his mother learn, before both of them had been discarded. 

Sometimes, on hunts or trying to sleep at night, Koba’s mind would lock itself into a cage just like the cold, dirty ones he’d spent his adolescence in. If the other apes noticed, they only showed it by avoiding him, the same way they always did. But if Caesar noticed —

If Caesar noticed, he would brush his hand against Koba’s, the lightest possible touch he was capable of.

And the cage would unlock. 

Koba was unfamiliar with the concept of warmth; he suspected that, with Caesar at his side, he could learn.


End file.
